[Advaita-l] Atharvavediya Narayana suktam

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Namaste friends,

What I understand is that there was a time when the brahmins were used to the Vedatrayee and were unsure about the status of the Atharva revelations. At this stage the Atharvana rishi prayed to Lord Shiva and the Lord assured the vedic status of the Atharva veda. 

Probably because of this the Atharva priest consequently became the higher priest (Brahma-priest) and used to precide over the priests of the Vedatrayee. It is quite possible that  because of this assumed higher staus by the Atharvavediya brahmns they declined to give  their daughters in marriage to the other vedic brahmins, considering that to be pratiloma. This assumed superiority could have eventually backfired and the other brahmins refused to give their daughters in marriage to the Atharva-vedic brahmns.
I shall welcome hearing your views on this.
Regards,Sunil KB
 

     On Saturday, February 21, 2015 10:16 AM, Animesh via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
   

 SrI mAtre namaH ,

Namaste,

SrI Sunil KB wrote "
many Atharvavadin brahimns switchng over to Shuklayajurveda. I was wondering as to what could be the reason.  While the sage Yajnavalkya attained the Shuklayajurveda from Lord Surya, the status of the Atharva-veda was recognized by no less than Lord Shiva himself. Was then switch-over due to the desire of some of the atharvavedin brahmins to participate as priests in the Shrauta karmas and reaping  the consequent higher economic benefits ?" .
Also I got a personal mail from SrI Nitin Sridhar about same topic.

At present it is true that switch-over due to the desire of some of the atharvavedin brahmins to participate as priests in the Shrauta karmas ( but presently in smarata karma  ) and reaping  the consequent higher economic benefits ?" .Since for post of bramha a svashakha brahmin may be chosen instead of atharvavedin so many switched yajurveda for economical benefit. 
( some atharvanbrahmins of Gujarat in 16th century  first switched to maitrayani shAkhA and present descends of them had switched to shuklayajurveda )

Another thing is social status of atharvavedins . They were considered as low brahmins [ brahmins of three veda call themselves as shuddha brahmin  and pretadhani and atharvan  as ashuddha brahmin ( low ) ] . They were not invited at brahmin bhojans .( of course including sraddha ) Even I found a historical evidence of this practice in Bhatta Jayants nyayamanjari. ( He was a paippalAdin so in his treatise  he had tried to prove that atharvavedins have right to take food in sradhha ).
Even if invited they were not included in brahminpankti ( row of brahmins sitting for consumption of food. )A separate panti was to be formed . 

One more thing according to rules of atharvavavedins 
( paithinasi, karmapanjika )A daughter of atharvavedin was only to be married to a  
atharvavedin. But a atharvavedin boy can marry another shakha girl. ( We call it kanyavyahvara ) Others shAkhA brahmins had an objection on this practice so they stopped marrying there daughters to atharvavedins. And atharvavedins of same gotra or even a single same rishi in pravara can't marry .
So due to problems in kanyavyahvara many clans were finished and some of them switched another veda so that they can be able for 
kanyavyahvara.

In case of paippalAda shAkhA it's ritual are very vast so it took 7-8 hour to complete rituals ( costs high and time consuming )so paippalAdins started inviting kanva shAkhA priests instead of svashakha so paippalAdin priest community started learning kanva shAkhA and practising it. 


Regards
Animesh 
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